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Cameroon Measles Vaccination Team Attacked, Motives Questioned

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   EBOLOWA, CAMEROON -- Members of measles vaccination teams in southern
   Cameroon have been attacked and beaten by locals who say the serums
   triggered side effects that sent 12 children to local hospitals.

   Many rural Cameroonians distrust vaccination campaigns, which have been
   organized as part of a national initiative to stop a measles outbreak
   that has afflicted a number of children.

   Thirty-four-year-old Samuel Amougou, a vaccination team member in
   Cameroon's southern commercial town of Ebolowa, is still recovering
   from wounds he sustained from angry parents who oppose the vaccination
   campaign. He says Roman Catholic clergy transported him and five other
   vaccination team members to Ebolowa regional hospital after angry
   parents harassed them last Friday in front of a local government
   school.

   "They [the parents] did not want to hear any explanations. They did not
   allow me to speak. I just got blows [to] my face and all over my body,
   severe beatings on my face and all over my body," Amougou said.

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